stressed...sleep...some time...

soo, i haven't written in a few days. it's probably a good thing. i've been working on zillions of papers and stuff. the work is stressing me out, but haha it's nothing new. i talked to armand a few days ago - one of i think three times this semester - and when i told him i was bogged down with work he goes "ooh flavia...same old flavia" then a few hours later, talking with evan about stress and such, "flavia, some things never change." i'd like to imagine that i've done a better job this semester managing work/stress and such, but geez. one month before the end of the semester and all i want for christmas is SLEEEEEEP.

today's posting is inspired by a conversation i had with ruth about an hour ago. we have come to the agreement that the union GREATLY lacks floor lamps. to that end, we're contemplating starting a "we would really like some floor lamps, please" coalition. no wonder people constantly pass out on the comfy chairs... it's not the chairs... or the lack of sleep (well maybe that)... it's the LACK OF LIGHT! oy vey. it's all politics, i'm telling you. we pay how much to go here??? haha i'm really joking (about being peeved. i would like the lights though) anywho.

riight so stress. i'm currently in the process of not going to my second class (terrible, yes.) because i have two papers and a take home quiz due today and i'm not done. yikes. well the quiz is done, and one of the papers is moderately ok. but the other one...oh dear. i'm really behind in life at the moment. but i feel like an ass for complaining. :)

ok... time for things that make me happy/ i am doing this weekend: kermit (falls in category I, not II), making gingerbread houses (this saturday!!! yay!!!), umm... contra dancing (friday...y'all should come...OLC 8pm i think), dance show hopefully, weekly euchre (God bless all people who play quasi-mindless card games that make me soo happy AAAND remind me of kent island), umm reading polar express about 10 times per day, hopefully hanging out with my wonderful and yet miserable friend who life and gravel apparently have a grudge against (but if he gargled he'd be ok...that's my hypothesis, anyway), doing work and hopefully de-stressing.

standing in the way between me and my weekend: 2 klingle papers, a meeting to get all prepared for our enviro law trial (haha i'm a lawyer and an economist...watch out), a waaay too early meeting friday morning about environmental education, my stupid (at the moment) history of colonial boston meeting places paper...blah. and probably a bunch of other stuff.

to end on a depressing marvin note (because marvin is the solitary friend in misery to every stressed out kid who knows about HHG...)

"do you want me to sit in the corner and rust, or just fall apart where i'm standing?"

bear and (in?) a presentable brown hat...

ahhhaa! two of the most wonderful people in the world (most of the time) dear sis and father-bear from their visit to bowdoin last month! i had a hard time deciding between this picture and the one of them standing in front of the huge boot at bean's but i decided that papa san looked a bit scary in the boot one... so here we go. :)

right now i'm in the basement of hl writing writing...furiously writing...and going on tangents. but that's normal, i think. the greatest tangent (and the inspiration to write right now) came just a few minutes ago... i was upstairs on the second floor gathering random books about fish and such when i stumbled into the anthropology section (ok, i went there intentionally because i'm confused about culture) and started flipping through books. i picked up one entitled "anthropologists and anthropology" (i realize its supposed to be underlined, but i can't figure out how to do that here...hmm) anywho, flipping through i came across this letter. so wonderful. odd, but wonderful... it's from malinowski to betrand russell in 1930...

Dear Russell,
On the occasion of my visit to your School I left my only presentable brown hat in your anteroom. I wonder whether since then it has had the privilege of enclosing the only brains in England which I ungrudgingly regard as better than mine; or whether it has been utilized in some of the juvenile experimentations in physics, technology, dramatic art, or prehistoric symbolism; or whether it naturally lapsed out of the anteroom.
If none of these events, or shall we rather call them hypotheses, holds good or took place, could you be so good as to bring it in a brown paper parcel or by some other concealed mode of transport to London and advise me on a post card where I could reclaim it? I am very sorry that my absentmindedness, which is a characteristic of high intelligence, has exposed you to all the inconvenience incidental to the event.
I do hope to see you some time soon.
Yours sincerely,
B. Malinowski

haha pretentious, perhaps. but if i could write a letter like that... (i wouldn't be so mean to physics, technology, etc.) anyway. page 36/37 of the 1973 edition.

right right. break is quickly winding down. i have much to do, too little time, and again... as always... other things on my mind. latest of which is whether i want to quit swimming. as of now, yes. as of after dinner tonight with cassia, who will undoubtedly persuade me not to quit, no... ach. i think i will need a wee bit of mental fortitude and just go with what i feel. i'd rather go hiking... or camping... running... no more pool.

really my dears, it's not easy being green. ooh and ps i've decided that i really like seeing people smile. even mentally haha. i talked to nagymama today (and mama and horvath iren) and i told her one of the hungarian tongue twisters i've been working on, and mama said she got 10 years younger and was smiling. i like that. i guess it's time to get back to work. this has been a fun diversion.

thinking outside the box? drinking milk?

this wonderful picture is from artnet.com...the white cube gallery in hoxton square, london. i wonder if vacation isn't getting to my head. i keep internally laughing because the same little clip of memory keeps running through my head - papa, auntie tuma and i @ the gallery... little white corpses with pingpong balls for eyes, and papa taking off his snappy coat so he can lie down on the ground (*!!!*) to get a better view of the flying manikin... i can't wait to be back together in europe.

anywho. today has been wonderful. it is cold and blustery out... beautiful. i am cozy inside the little dog cafe, drinking chai (with milk!!! why??? haha i know i'll feel sick later...) i am enjoying myself immensely. i check my email incessantly haha. i laugh soo much. i don't want to get ahead of myself, because often i do... my mind wanders, i don't get things done. aaah i love it.

i just spent a good half an hour with this lady at the little phone store @ the tontine mall. she didn't know anything (well i guess she did know her name) and the great thing was, i didn't get frustrated at all. it was sort of humorous actually (i wasn't laughing at her, i was laughing because i found it funny that when she didn't know something concerning a phone, she would call some other person...on her cell phone... who would call another person...etc.) it just reminds me how amazing the last 300 years have been technologically.

ps this is totally unrelated to phones, but i love babies. there is a whole cohort of youngsters running around the coffee shop right now. little girl eating a huge cookie, reminds me of 7th grade in mezoszemere where the little boy had a huge smile, two tiny hands, and a huuuuuuuge sandwich... little baby in a whole fleece cocoon...sleeping! haha i'm def. not like utz who says that when she sees babies her "uterus cries out to her" but i think they're fabulous. that's sort of gross anyway. ook enough with that tangent.

gaaaaahhhh!!!! horray!!! it's started snowing since i've been writing this!!! i love winter. i'm excited for getting back to class (and dreading the work standing and glaring at me right now)...library races...poetry... :P don't laugh at me.

bowdoin

waking up at 10am on november 25th, i feel a bit like frodo waking up in rivendell... only i haven't been stabbed recently. i feel like i've slept about 10 years, which is a wonderful feeling. did you know that aragorn and arwen are related??? according to the article on arwen on my favorite wikipedia, aragorn's ancestor elros was elrond's brother... wonderful. john - if you're reading this, i guess i wasn't so wrong about the incestuous elves... oh anywho, i still love lord of the rings. i have no idea how this little bit started...such are brains made of swiss cheese...

all things considered, i had a wonderful thanksgiving. i was really sad that i couldn't be with papa or little juliska (i don't know what i call my own sister - i'd call her noonie, but that's not really nice to do online, and i'd call her julianna, but i don't do that in life...so hmm... time to start calling her fozzie the muppet or something) but being with friends was wonderful as well. i was a bit sad that none of the shelters wanted me - i told them i could do the dishes and all that, or whatever they wanted... oh dishwashing liquid... we had so much fun w/emily and her parents though. i got some wonderful suggestions from carl, brandy, honora, emily, etc. about books to read after anna. i'm so excited for winter break... lots of non-required reading.

this is sort of funny, and now that i know that ivan reads this (oy vey... should i check for spelling now that nerdly uchicago kids are reading this???) i should tell it... i have a tendency to fall asleep on thanksgiving. last year it was on ivan's roommates bed (sorry, again and again) but that had more to do with traveling at 6 am and then helping to cook all day. this year i don't know what it was. we all had a wonderful dinner, sat down on the couch to watch alice's restaurant (weeird) and i was out. why do i always miss the fun things in life? :P

aah well, friday at bowdoin with no one around. time to work (i can't concentrate, this is really bad) and hopefully see harry potter with ivy tonight. i miss my friends immensely, but i was so happy that utz and maya called. my day ended after talking with mr hannu/janos/janne. a wonderful way to end a wonderful day. THE END.

slartibartfast and little dogs...

it's snowing!!! it makes me soo happy! i woke up this morning, looked out the window and internally jumped for joy. i would've externally jumped as well, but i can't exactly. haha that's a different story though. while i won't be such a fan of snow come april, i am always extremely excited when it first starts. these last few days have been sort of dull, weather wise. huge raindrops (which i am a fan of) but also far too blah. now that the leaves are gone, campus looks a little sterile. the first thing that comes to my mind is the inside of a concrete parking garage. even though the cars inside might look nice, everything looks a little drab because of the surroundings. oh well, it'll pass.

today i got up far too late. 11am. i still have two papers to write, but such is life. :) i read something really interesting today - have you ever wondered about how to sew on a button so that it is not too tight and not too loose? well i came across this really cool blog by a tailor in england... http://www.englishcut.com ... amazing. if you need something to read to procrastinate, read it.

random thoughts: 1) i had a dream last night in which i realized what i want to give papa and noonie for christmas. that made me really happy... 2) each day on my way home from practice, i meet a little mottled dog with no tail. we hang out for a few minutes, and then i keep walking home. i always wondered why the dog is always in the same place every day. well, i saw this sign and now it all makes sense. pretty amazing eh? invisible fences... 3) i miss my family, and i miss my friends, but i love them, so all is well :)

to conclude, a little bit of the bbc version of hitchhiker's guide... a good friend of mine talking a bit about hibernating... something i'd reaaaaaallly like to do!

"dead? no, we have but slept. yes, through the economic recession you see. well five million years ago the galactic economy collapsed, and seeing as custom built planets are something of a luxury commodity... you know we build planets, do you? fascinating trade... doing coastlines was always my favorite, used to have endless fun doing all the little fidley bits and fjords... anyway, the recession came, and we decided to sleep through it..."
-slartibartfast

paper and to bed early. wheeeee!

eye cameras and donnie darko

in exactly one month i'll be in hungary! this morning i talked to my mum and grandmother, i'm soo excited. it just hit me as i was talking to kruiky how quickly december is approaching. i wish my layover were in copenhagen rather than random place in germany so i could see her... c'est la vie.

time is quickly running away, and i have quite a lot of work to do. i think if i stopped thinking about the work i might finish it more quickly, but alas i'm a to-do-list making kind of person so inevitably i think about all the stuff i have to do... all the time. :)

my insane idea for the day: how wonderful would it be if your eyes were attached to a camera. how often do you walk around, see something that's so fleeting that by the time you think "ooh i wish i had my camera" its already gone? your eyelids could be the shutter, and you could just imagine your own film speed, aperture settings (it'd be sort of like watching your pupils dilate!) etc. anyway, that's what i thought of because i always have those "i wish i had my camera" moments...

speaking of pupils dilating, on friday night we watched donnie darko, and i feel that i've become the unofficial spokesperson to all those who haven't seen it. i think it may only have been because john actually knew what was going on and so could explain it, but i thought it was a pretty amazing movie. and my poor ipod is probably getting sick of playing mad world, which i find myself listening to over...and over... and over...

anywho, time for paper writing to commence (oh fun...) i think i'm the posterchild of procrastination. help!

eheu inquit...

sadly, this pictures was from a few days ago. today was nasty and cold...rain, hail, blah. oh well. i'm really happy that this week is going rather quickly, although i'm not really excited about next week's prospects. i need a vacation of about 2 weeks between tomorrow and next monday so i can figure out my paper for history. it's one of those silly problems in which you think for a moment that you've got your thesis figured out, and then you simply don't. ach. i'm serious, i need a vacation.

anyway these lasts couple days have been fun, if a wee bit stressful at times. reading tolstoy has really been my mental outlet, and i wish i had more time for it. i'm really pretty sad about vronsky's horse.

this whole thing has been pretty random today. basically i'm the tyrannical ruler of planet tangent. on that note, i think its time to leave this tangential world and get to my paper. but first...one of my favorite poems about leaves, by robert frost.

Leaves Compared with Flowers

A tree's leaves may be ever so good,
So may its bar, so may its wood;
But unless you put the right thing to its root
It never will show much flower or fruit.

But I may be one who does not care
Ever to have tree bloom or bear.
Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,
Leaves and bark may be tree enough.

Some giant trees have bloom so small
They might as well have none at all.
Late in life I have come on fern.
Now lichens are due to have their turn.

I bade men tell me which in brief,
Which is fairer, flower or leaf.
They did not have the wit to say,
Leaves by night and flowers by day.

Leaves and bar, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood.

wonderful sunday

aaaccch!!! it's SUNDAY!!! where does time fly to? i'm sitting here, staring at my quasi-stupid policy/politics paper, WISHING i had more time, only i remember from the good old days when i once read a time management book that wishing things to be done doesn't really help much...see, i DID get something out of that book after all! (i was once told by my one and only sister that time management books were quite a way to waste time...) yes, well i think writing this is probably a form of procrastination as well. i'm so good at this!

the last few days have been positively WONDERFUL. stayed up waaaaaaaay too late (early?) on friday night watching lotr and stuffing dan and john with blueberry muffins (actually, i think it was voluntary but they did eat many a muffin). saturday's swim meet was really fun because it was all relays. i think this season will be fun, only i wish they were ALL relay meets. too bad.

by the way, what does curb your dog mean??? its from a street corner next to some really expensive-ish flat in new york...

anywho. i'm pretty much too happy right now. its a wonderful feeling. although i have a ton of work... not so good.

two equally crazy things to mention before back to work/bed... 1) saw arlene blum at the olc... AMAZING...2) met carl gustaf...teehee.

and finally, thanks to jordan i am now thoroughly engaged in reading a second amazing book, siddhartha, by hermann hesse... absolutely amazing...a wee bit from chapter 3...

"The Buddha went on his way, modestly and deep in his thoughts, his
calm face was neither happy nor sad, it seemed to smile quietly and
inwardly. With a hidden smile, quiet, calm, somewhat resembling a
healthy child, the Buddha walked, wore the robe and placed his feet
just as all of his monks did, according to a precise rule. But his
face and his walk, his quietly lowered glance, his quietly dangling hand
and even every finger of his quietly dangling hand expressed peace,
expressed perfection, did not search, did not imitate, breathed softly
in an unwhithering calm, in an unwhithering light, an untouchable peace."

if i could have locke over for dinner, we would most certainly chew on this book...more to come as i get farther along. sleep well!!!

aaaah! it's neville the gnome! as i was going about my usual thursday duties (sleeping, having breakfast with utz, reading, sleeping, etc. etc.) i realized that i REALLY miss my gnome! :( but... i know that he's being a wonderful gnome by taking care of kruiky's room for her. still, there's a wee bit of my heart missing. i can't come home from classes and say hello... i can't ask mr mokus (the squirrel) how he's doing... oy vey.

i guess today there were three overarching themes:
1) how i'm exhausted.
2) how much i miss neville/mr. mokus
3) how much i dislike vronsky

anywho, this is the extent for today. bowling was fun (monica and i beat all three guys...sweeet), reading in bed will be even better! tomorrow i'm looking forward to: euchre, lunch w/cassia and katie to discuss the first section of a loovely book, getting to work on papers, etc. and *hopefully* getting to bed early!

ooh lastly before bed, i have to say that early this morning there was a smell in the air which reminded me so thoroughly of mezoszemere that i nearly got confused about what country i was in. i miss my mama, i miss nagyie, morzsi, everything. ach.

it's only 9:30 right now and i'm exhausted. class-wise, my week is over, and it didn't come a moment too soon. i'm really excited for the 8 hours of sleep awaiting me at 10. i've learned (finally!) that i can't expect myself to get up for morning practice unless i let myself sleep a decent amount. i love sleep, so no complaints. i just realized, i talk about sleep a lot. i'm not a sloth (although they're cute little munchkins) just perpetually lacking sleep. i think it'd be fun to be a koala for awhile... or just a grizzly bear who gets to hibernate... oooh to hibernate. anyway, that was a tangent.

today was another wonderful day (why have i been so lucky?!) 8am environmental law was a bit difficult to get motivated for - i wasn't finished with the readings, and i was 95% still sleeping. fell asleep in the union for an hour, curled up in one of the moderately comfortable chairs in the cafe... there we go again with the sleep :) the most interesting part of my day started around 11:30 when i came home to take a shower and realized the power was out. its funny because i like to think of myself as relatively conscious of the environment and my impact on it, but i was soooo peeved that i had to take a shower in the dark. its funny how dependent we all are... anywho, had a delightful poetry lunch w/ dear don juan von gronberg (sorry yo) at which i came up with that horrendous name. although, i suppose gimli was also a name option at one point, but he didn't much like being associated with a hairy dwarf (i can't ever imagine why!?) haha well the determining factor for me was that i didn't want to be known around campus as "helga"... i'm glad we worked all that out. green injustice was fun, partially because i thoroughly disagreed with one of the readings. always fun to argue in class :) practice was decent again, and at one point while we were working on starts i even had a wonderful little conversation with brad about what kind of bird would best represent the dive he wanted (we agreed on kingfisher)... FINALLY something makes sense at practice! teehee.

bad part: never enough time for poetry, morning practice tomorrow at 6:45, can't go to euchre tonight (one i have no clue where red brick house is, two its raining buckets outside and i'd have to walk, and three hday never emailed me back... boo heather...boo...:) the rains started but its still mighty cold = twice as bad, i'm disintergrating because i think i'm a wee bit alergic to chlorine... oops!

good part: bed time in 15 minutes, started reading anna karenina and can't stop, am done with classes for the week, listened to james taylor while dinking around adams during what would otherwise have been policy and politics because ANNE CANCELLED CLASS... whoohoo for mental breaks!

things i should work on that would make me happier: getting some sort of de-chlorinizing agent... figuring out courses for next semester... writing to Grandpapa... brushing my teeth and getting into bed. on THAT note... :)

late addition: 12:54am... went to euchre because erica called me at 9:55 as i was in my pjs... too much fun. ps i love anna karenina! pps i'm not a nerd for researching what a black and tan is... :P or for looking words up in dictionaries... bowdoin students...humph. now seriously off to bed, i'm glad i went, but at the expense of 3 hours sleep. c'est la vie!

small steps are rewarding...

aaah so yes, the picture there is rather weird... it's the poster from the movie (of the book) animal farm... the reason i put it up is that today i felt myself continually feeling like i was the horse. (remember the whole "i WILL work harder... i WILL work harder" bit? yeeaah that's me) so in a tribute to horsey, there it is.

today was a really productive day. meetings with professors, minor breakthroughs on papers, successful day at practice (more or less :P ), FINALLY emailed barrett (yay!), and generally just in a wonderful mood.

i'm realizing more and more the value of the un-normal... the "outside the box" world that i feel i inhabit. it's fun to just admit to yourself, that hmmm... you definately AREN'T the normal definition of normal. (basically this epiphany came during dinner while i was talking with shelly-bean, naberaide, and nish about how i find peeing in the pool to be extremely difficult. apparently, i'm the only one) were i to have a laugh-quotient for each day, that one 5minute conversation would've exceeded it. i love them. :)

other successes today: wrote a sonnet (well the first stanza of one anyway), submitted 26 pages of writing (actually yesterday, but i'm still basking in the glory of being done with those 26 pages), realized how much i love reading in autumn light... so nice... practiced my violin. these are all small things, but if i can be as happy as i am now by accomplishing these seemingly minor things, i'll take it! :)

I can't think of a better way to start this blog... and this week, for that matter... than a pictoral tribute to Kruiky! These wee little birds are friends of hers, who she met in Copenhagen. Now we all know that penguins live in the southern hemisphere, but these guys hopped on a plane for a visit.

This morning was pretty painful - 10 page environmental law memo due at 8am... I think I would make a world champion competitive sleeper, if only I were given the chance. There is something so happy about being curled up in bed underneath your comforter... thinking about how lucky you are to be in a bed with a comforter... and just sleeping.

11.07.05 List of Things that Make Me Happy: thinking of bedtime... talking to Kruiky... pocket-size penguins... whirling autumn leaves... huge rain drops!

And a wee bit of Locke for inspiration:
"Those who have read everything are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so - reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment."